1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a sensitizer, a pharmaceutical composition, a kit and use. More particularly, the present invention relates to a sensitizer, a pharmaceutical composition, a kit and use for cancer therapy.
2. Related Art
Rapamycin, also known as sirolimus, was isolated from Streptomyces hygroscopicus of the soil sample obtained from Easter Island. Rapamycin has demostrated anti-fungal activity both in vitro and in vivo, especially in Candida albicans, and thus is used as an agricultural antifungal agent in the early days. However, when the fact that rapamycin has an inhibition effect against immunoreaction and anti-proliferative effect has been discovered, rapamycin is used on large scale as an immuno-inhibition drug, to inhibit the rejection of, for example, acute allotransplantation.
There are a variety of commercial drugs containing rapamycin now, for example, RAPAMUNE® (Wyeth, Collegeville, Pa., USA), the main use of which is for preventing organ rejection after kidney transplant. In addition, CERTICAN® produced by Novartis, East Hanover, N.J., USA, also provides the effect of preventing organ rejection.
On the other hand, chloroquine is a substituted quinoline which has been commonly used for over 60 years for the prevention and treatment of malaria prophylaxis, or for rheumatoid arthritis treatment and HIV treatment.
It has been testified that rapamycin and chloroquine has certain degree of treatment effect on a cancer and a tumor due to their property of inhibiting cell growth and inducing cell death. Relative research is also revealed in various international journal articles. In addition, the technique of combining rapamycin and chloroquine to inhibit the growth and proliferation of tumor has been disclosed in both US patent 2006/2064384 and WO patent 2010/132233.
However, the follow-up studies did not make any further breakthrough, and comparing to using individually, the use of their combination does not show obviously promoted effects. Moreover, when using in certain type of cancers, the treatment effects of using rapamycin, chloroquine and their combination are almost the same and show no advantage of combination use. On the other hand, there has been no report or article of using a combination of rapamycin and substituted quinoline as a sensitizer of cancer treatment, instead of a therapeutically active composition.